Intense Exercise Won’t Help You Lose Weight

Pure barre, weight loss, exercise, metabolism, thyroid health, adrenal fatigue

This is something I have noticed WAY before the “hot girl walk” became a trend on tik tok, and while that trend annoys me just a little bit the science behind it is real. Hear me clearly when I say exercise is good. We need daily movement, muscle growth and the endorphin release. However, if we exercise too much and with too much intensity it can actually slow down the weight loss process.

This is because our body is so smart. It will adapt when it starts to burn more calories because it is designed to survive. What happens when you start a new workout program is that your body learns to burn less calories doing that exercise to conserve energy. In other words, you will burn less calories on day 30 than day 1 of an exercise program (for example). Yes, you may have more muscle and that will still support burning more calories throughout the day, but you are still at risk of hitting a weight loss plateau if you go too hard for too long– IN the weight loss phase.

That is a huge point I like to make clear. I’m not saying you can’t ever workout hard if that is something you enjoy and your body responds well to it (as in it doesn’t cause injuries). I’m saying that if you are on a weight loss journey, it is actually better to focus on smart movement and nutrition versus intense exercise.

Smart movement in something that gets the heart rate up, still challenges the muscles and makes you feel good, but isn’t forcing you to burn crazy calories like up to 1,000. If you are a pure barre person (if you don’t know me I have been a pure barre person for almost 10 years), I always recommend sticking to the classic format and avoiding empower when you have a goal of weight loss. That is usually pretty shocking to people because it has been programmed into their brain to burn as many calories as possible to lose weight. All I can say to that is take a chance on this concept. I’ve seen it happen to myself and mannnnnny clients over the years.

I have even heard scientists say that exercise doesn’t help weight loss at all. I think that can be a bit of a stretch since movement can help support adrenal and thyroid health, which is connected to metabolism. Plus, many people who come to me have a lot of work to do for their adrenals and thyroid to feel “safe” and be able to be in a weight loss phase and smart movement can help support that process. It’s important to have these systems working optimally before any weight loss program. 

After reading a blog or instagram post like this, many people ask “How do I know if my adrenals and thyroid are ready for weight loss?” or “How do I know if I’m working out too much? It’s just what I’ve been doing for years!”  Well, for starters you will definitely feel it when they aren’t working well. You will probably feel a lot of fatigue, workouts will feel impossible, gut symptoms will eventually pop up and your brain just isn't firing like it used to. You can also run a number of metabolic tests to get more specific. If you would like to learn more about what labs I order, join my email list to get the new freebie coming this week! I’m sharing my favorite metabolism labs and how to support your body if you feel like these labs are out of range. Again, this is such an important step to healing metabolism. Grab it so you can get more answers for your health journey!